3.6 Connect: Wi-Fi connected smart lock demo

Hello, everyone. I'm Adrian Fernandez, and welcome to another episode of Connect. Today, we brought on Ben Moore from our Wi-Fi team to talk about a TI design that is put together, in this particular instance, a Wi-Fi- and BLE-connected door lock.
That's correct.
Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us today. Do you want to maybe give a quick overview of the TI design that you put together.
Yeah, sure. Thanks, Adrian. So this is a SimpleLink Wi-Fi-- so CC3220-based e-lock. And it also includes the CC2640R2 and another TI part, the DRV8837. And what this system is doing is it's controlling an e-lock. It's providing it with cloud connectivity directly from home access point to your lock. And then it's using the BLE to improve the ease of use when you're setting up the system. And then the DRV is just used to actually drive a motor, so you can actuate the lock itself.
Awesome. Very cool. And you mentioned-- I guess there's two forms of connectivity here. You've got the Bluetooth provisioning, and then you also have, I guess, your main application processor, the 3220, which is both the Wi-Fi network processor and ARM MCU all in one chip.
Yeah, right. That's correct.
OK, very cool. And what are some of the capabilities that the 3220 brings to the table for e-lock-type applications?
Yeah, so something that's really cool about the CC3220 is that it's a dual-core device, right? So we have the application's MCU, which is being used here to run the entire application, including interfacing with the BLE as a network processor. And then it's also interfacing to the DRV8837, doing all the control for the lock itself.
In this demo, we're also getting a couple simple inputs from GPIOs to detect the lock state. So all that's done on the app's MCU. And then all of the Wi-Fi stuff is offloaded to a separate core. And that's the network processor that we've got inside of the CC3220.
OK, cool. And with the Wi-Fi connectivity, what are some of the benefits that a user would be able to take advantage of with that Wi-Fi connectivity?
Sure. So a lot of the locks nowadays, they'll use BLE or some other connectivity or even interface, like a keypad, for local control. But what they lack is the ability to let the user control the system when they're away from their house-- so remotely. And that's what the Wi-Fi is bringing to the table. With the Wi-Fi connectivity in this lock, you can connect it to your home access point, and then you have the freedom to monitor it and control it whenever you're away from home, as long as you've got some other device that has internet connectivity.
OK. And that's using an MQTT client API?
Yeah. So the way that we're doing that is we've got a pretty simple MQTT client that allows this system to communicate with a broker that's connected over the internet. And then that gives you the interface to any other connected device--
Cool.
--that runs some MQTT client.
Awesome. And that's the demo you wanted to show today?
Yeah. So we can jump into it--
Yeah, totally.
--and actually show you how it works. Right now, we're showing it connected up to some actual e-lock hardware that we've repurposed to demonstrate this design. So here, we've got the e-lock housing. Inside of that is the brushed DC motor. And you can see here, I can actuate the lock manually, just like I would if I were at my house and locking it.
And then outside, we've got all of the components of the design we were just describing, which are being used to control that system electronically. So here, I'll show you. On my phone, I've got an app that is an MQTT client. It lets me communicate to that broker that this system is connected to and then actuate the lock. So real quick, since it's locked, I'll send an unlock message. And shortly, the system will start responding, and I can unlock it.
Awesome. That's very quick-- very little latency.
Yeah, it's pretty quick. So that's a really cool thing about MQTT, is not only is it a low-memory footprint protocol, but also, it lets you be low-power, and it's very low latency.
Awesome. Awesome. And you mentioned a couple of things. I guess, with it being now a internet-connected door lock, are there anything we're doing from a security standpoint within these SimpleLink products?
Yeah, absolutely. So security is a big challenge for these systems, and it's really important to consumers that are buying e-locks, because this is something that's supposed to be securing your assets at home. So what we want to do is we want to make sure our solution also lets you add in all the security features that you need to maintain that security.
So what we've got going on with this demo right here is we're using TLS, which is a standard internet security protocol, to secure the message communication from this device, all the way up through the cloud end-to-end. And then, also, we're showcasing some other cool features, like our ability to do secure, over-the-air updates. So say your lock manufacturer decides that there was some security flaw in the system, and they want to push out an update. You can download that over the air to our device, and then commit it.
Now, a problem that a lot of other vendors tend to have is figuring out how to do that whole download and update process securely. If there's an error in the update when you're downloading it, and then you commit that to your memory and then go to run it and it doesn't work, you could end up with a lock that stops working. And that's no good.
So what we've implemented is a process where you can not only verify the content of the download while you're doing it, but also, once you have the content downloaded and you want to try the new update, you can do a quick little test of the firmware, run the system, make sure everything's working as expected, before you actually commit that as the working version of the firmware. And that's cool, because when it works, it just works. But if it were to fail, you safely go back to the working version that you had before.
Gotcha. So super robust.
Yeah, so we're really intending on making this thing super robust and very user-friendly.
Love it. Awesome. And this is a TI design that you worked on. Is there a TI design number people can use to find it on the web?
Yeah, so this is available on the web now. We've got all the software resources and then the documentation for it, as well as links to the hardware design files for all of the EVMs. And that's on ti.com/tool/tidc-01005.
Love it. Awesome. Well, if you're looking for a low-power, secure, robust Wi-Fi-connected e-lock, look no further. Thank you so much, Ben, for hanging out with us today. Tune in next week, where we'll dive deeper into the SimpleLink platform. And again, be sure to send any feedback, ideas, or new topic ideas on Twitter at @SensorToCloud. So thanks, Ben, and thank you all for watching.
Thanks, Adrian.

Details

Date:
October 1, 2018

Using the new TIDC-01005 reference design, Ben from the SimpleLink™ apps team demonstrates how to use both Wi-Fi and BLE connectivity to control a door lock through a smart phone. Wi-Fi enables a user to control their doorlock from anywhere in the world through the cloud. The design uses four critical components: